New camper (Furnace) smell.

Sure glad to find out I'm not the only one that went through the smelly furnace routine.

Ah, the rites of passage......

I usually remember to run furnace in TT at home prior to first late fall/winter trip, because I usually have to deal with similar issue for furnace in S&B. here the heat is run only a few months, so I have to run heat in house and burn off dust that collects over the many months that it doesn't run. Otherwise, I am waken middle of the night with smoke alarm in S&B going off.

I'm thinking that our dealer must have burnt ours off. We picked ours up April 1rst last spring and when we fired it up there was a small amount of odor but no visible smoke.

1775 wrote:
They all do this. In fact the manual for the furnace talks about it. All we had to do was open a window and start the ceiling fan and the smoke alarm stopped and the smell was gone in fifteen minutes. It is just whatever the furnace parts are coated with burning off when it is first ignited. After the initial burn off it will not happen again.

The manual? that means following directions. no way.
bumpy

They all do this. In fact the manual for the furnace talks about it. All we had to do was open a window and start the ceiling fan and the smoke alarm stopped and the smell was gone in fifteen minutes. It is just whatever the furnace parts are coated with burning off when it is first ignited. After the initial burn off it will not happen again.

my alarm started screaming in the middle of the night on my first trip. went down to the propane/CO detector and started poking around thinking I was going to die.
then noticed the noise was about 7 ft above me. checked to see that we weren't on fire, took it down and pulled the battery.
bumpy

Wow! You guys are running the furnace and I'm soaking wet from being outside working! We hit 90 degrees today!

And...it happened to us on Friday. Had the new trailer out for shakedown cruise. Firt 2 days, it was really hot and muggy, then the cold front came through and Friday morning, it was darn right chilly! So...turned the furnace on, and within a minute, our ears were shattered by the smoke alarm. I opened the bathroom vent and a window and just let the furnace run to get rid of the wonderful smells. We're headed to the west coast of MI in a week, so we'll see if it got completely burned off!

@DuchmenSport: Well... Somehow I actually did know (probably read it here) but time flies and I just never got my round-2-it... LOL. I have nobody to blame but me.

Yup, been there done that! Our first TT ... oh my we were shocked! After the furnace runs a while, it will burn off the oils from the duct work and the smell WILL go away. Second TT we knew what to do. Before we took the camper out on it's maiden voyage, we ran the furnace on High for about 5 hours. Yea, it cost propane, but the smells were then gone.

Our new Outback (2 weeks old) .. we used the furnace the first time last night. We are at Summit Lake State Park near New Castle, Indiana right now. It got chilly last night and we turned on the furnace. Now, I'd run the furnace at home a few days ago and it had a slight smell, but nothing like the first 2 campers we had. I let it run for about 30 minutes. So, last night when we flipped on the furnace, there was still a very slight hint of smell, but this morning, it's all gone... Over ... done ...

So yea! Your post made me laugh. By the way !!! SURPRISE! Bet you didn't see THAT one coming ... did you! Your dealer pre-walk-through should have given you a heads-up... but ... on all 3 trailers I've own, they didn't tell us either!

Happy camping .. it will be VERY good now!